Reservist Institution

Going to the training caught me offguard mostly because I hadn’t expected to see that many people at the training. Scott really wasn’t kidding when he said that the demographic ranged from all ages to all races to all classes. The people I talked to were were genuine New Yorkers, a few however had come from out-of-state since there was a call for Creole speakers.

The training was surprisingly engaging and I didn’t catch myself wandering. Depending on who was speaking it was easy to tell the overall enthusiasm of the crowd. The presentations seemed really outdated even though the content was relatively new. I know for the sake of teaching the design of the slideshow isn’t necessarily important but from a personal POV there are things that could be more efficient. Also, everyone that attends receives a Reservist Training Manual which is basically the entire lesson in paper form. This is another area where design could be more efficient. There’s a lot of gaps in the worksheets and information that could be pieced together better.

There was a huge uproar in the presentation concerning deployment to Haiti, a lot of people were unnerved once they were told that deployment might not be happening. I found out after speaking to a few that they were told to come to the NYC chapter from wherever they were and then asked to set a month in their schedule for Haiti. A lot of people wished they could’ve been better informed. I see their point and I’d be equally as furious too, but at the same time they had just discovered that week that the military was taking over in terms of translators.

With regards to Reservists, I learned that we’re the last to be called in the event of a disaster. At least that’s what I’m being led to understand. This might be another reason towards why the life expectancy of a volunteer isn’t high. They do make it clear that we’re all able to and are encouraged to partake in other classes to open up more possibilities for us and eventually be promoted.